


Fixing in the Dark

by rainbowBarnacle



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dreambubbles, M/M, Meteorstuck, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowBarnacle/pseuds/rainbowBarnacle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t remember the last time you cried like this. You bawl until you’re hoarse and shaking and you don’t dare lift your head because you are a fucking mess. Whoever it is—who <i>is</i> it, damnit?—thrums low in their squawkblister and holds you, and you press your ear to their chest and let the sound fill up your head. It’s been so long since anyone hugged you, you can barely believe it’s even happening; you don’t want to move in fear that it will stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fixing in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roachpatrol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/gifts).



turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] —  
TG: karkat  
—carcinoGeneticist [CG] changed his mood to RANCOROUS—  
TG: yeah yeah listen you have the right to be okay  
TG: im the winter of your discontent and im fucking sorry  
TG: im king of the assholes   
TG: im a diaper wearing fuckup guru freezing his balls off at the top of mount bastard  
TG: cmon karkat  
TG: tell me to go to hell  
TG: call me a giant sack of shit  
TG: anything just  
—carcinoGeneticist [CG] changed his mood to OFFLINE—  
TG: fuck

Your crabwatch makes an affronted squeak as you close your hand around it and twist. It pops free of the wristband and you fling it over your shoulder, where it lands somewhere in the horn pile. You return to staring unseeingly at your locked door, your chin propped in your palms, trying to think of anything besides the latest humiliating installment in the slideshow of your so-called life.

Your secret room has gathered a lot of dust since you were in it last. It’s more crowded than you remember. You sit with your back to everything without acknowledging it—Sollux’s dead, dry beehive mainframes, Kanaya’s abandoned dresses, Gamzee’s horn pile. Relics from another age. Seeing them again, you half expected to break down—that, at least, would have made sense—but there was a curious blankness inside you instead, a dull weariness at yourself and everyone.

You shut your eyes and try to make the pain come. You’re tired of this meteor. You’re tired of its hallways and rooms, you’re tired of never feeling like you have any space to yourself, you’re tired of living somewhere with no seasons, with nothing to signify the passing of night into day. You’re exhausted all the time, and sleeping never leaves you rested; if you don’t end up trapped in some twisted horrorfuck nightmare, you get to fail at avoiding your chronically verbose ancestor and all of his deranged little friends.

Terezi has changed. You used to be able to _talk_ , and now even approaching her feels weird and wrong. Kanaya is harder and harder to find these days, wrapped up in one project or another, or dealing with her own perfectly legit, real problems with far more grace than you could ever dream of having. You have no idea where Sollux even is right now, if he’s still alive or half-alive or whatever the fuck he even was, and you’ve decided you don’t blame him for fucking off in the end—it makes sense that floating around in a broken universe full of ghosts with his creepy girlfriend is vastly preferable, in the end, to sitting around with your sorry ass.

And Gamzee…

Fuck Gamzee.

Nothing. You were expecting that last one to at least make a hairline crack in you. You try imagining him as he used to be before he ran out of pies, how he’d wrap his lanky appendages around your shoulders, emit that nerve-racking honking laugh, and rock you from side to side, all grins and dancing eyes. His bony fingers would tickle and prod you, his breath stirring your hair, and you can bring to mind the exact cadence of his voice as he pleaded with you to smile, just a little one, c’mon, don’t make a motherfucker beg.

He was pale as fuck for you, what _happened_?

Your time in the Veil was one of the most terrifying, stressful periods of your life, and you had no idea how good you had it back then. _No idea._

It almost seems like some ironic divine punishment that you should get stuck wandering those same halls and rooms with their context horribly changed. Rose and Kanaya turned the computer room into something out of Troll Better Homes & Gardens. The room you and Terezi strifed in once to relieve stress (you can remember her panting, your weapons locked, her sweaty bangs stuck to her forehead as she grinned at you and purred “Very _good_ , Mr. Vantas.”) was the room she and Dave turned into Can Town II.

Only your block stayed the same, largely neglected, full of all your old shit from what felt like eons ago—romcoms, posters, romance novels, boonbucks, coding manuals. Wiggler things.

It’s frightening to think that all this crept up on you, that it happened little by little without you noticing until almost three years are gone without you knowing where it all went and one day you catch Dave and the Mayor using one of Nepeta’s teapots in their idiotic city preservation project and even you don’t know why you flew into a rage, you just did.

And now here you are, huddled in a fucking closet, examining moldy recollections of your past instead of owning up to the fact that you are now and forever a worthless piece of shit.

It’s almost a relief when it finally happens. One minute you’re laughing bitterly and the next something in you rips wide open and you’re making low, strangled sobs into your knees.

In the sudden flood of emotion, you find yourself thinking absurdly that you miss grass. You miss grass so much it hurts you. Nothing grows on this ugly rock, and now you’re hurtling through paradox space and you miss your hive and your lusus and your friends and it’s all changed now and you haven’t the slightest clue of what where you’re headed is even going to be _like_ —

Someone’s arms go around you and for a few seconds you bristle and think of shoving them back, but fuck it, who the hell cares how they got in here, it’s not like you ever had any privacy on this shithole anyway. Cool fingers stroke your hair and for a split second you feel a sharp stab of sick hope that it might be Gamzee, but no, the smell is all wrong, and Gamzee dumped your pathetic ass for bigger and better things perigees ago.

_Fuck._

Those arms gather you closer roughly, one hand rubbing your back, and you clutch back and _howl_. God, you always hated this part, you could hold up fine for weeks in the face of the worst kind of pan squashing stress until the exact second somebody was gentle toward you.

“Shhhh-shh-shh. _Shoosh._ ”

You don’t remember the last time you cried like this. You bawl until you’re hoarse and shaking and you don’t dare lift your head because you are a fucking mess. Whoever it is—who _is_ it, damnit?—thrums low in their squawkblister and holds you, and you press your ear to their chest and let the sound fill up your head. It’s been so long since anyone hugged you, you can barely believe it’s even happening; you don’t want to move in fear that it will stop.

Cold hands move up and down your back, mesmerizing. “Hey, _shhh_ , it’s okay, easy now. _Breathe_ , Kar.”

Your eyes snap open. You draw back and stare right at Eridan fucking Ampora.

He gives you a small, tentative smile. His eyes are ghost white behind his glasses. He’s wearing that douchetastic gold and cream godtier outfit with the poofy shortpants. There’s a splotch of orange on the front from where you blubbered like an idiot all over him.

You are surprised how little you want to rearrange his face.

He is looking at you like he can’t quite believe you’re real. “God, I missed you so _much._ ”

You wipe your face on your shirt. It’s gross, but you don’t give a fuck. “Fucking _really._ What happened to not-me in your session, then.”

“Hell if I know, I died during that battle with the black king. Never learned what happened to my Kar, never ran into him or nothin’. But, fuck, it’s so good to see you again.”

You decide not to ask if his death was just or heroic.

“You two were pale, then?” you ask.

“Yeah, as pearls.”

You feel a spike of jealousy for not-you. It must have shown on your face, though, because he takes your hands and squeezes them. The familiarity of it makes you want to squirm, you want it and you don’t at the same time; he shouldn’t know how stroking your palms with his thumbs like that turns your thoughts to mush, he’s not _yours_ —

But you’re not anybody’s. You let him keep your hands and sigh through your nose. “So, the meteor must be going through another bubble then. Is anyone else here?”

“Just me, man.”

“And do you pale mack on every Karkat you run across?”

Embarrassment flickers across his face and he dips his head a little. “You’re the only one I ever found. And, well, you were sittin’ in here all by yourself and cryin’, I couldn’t just leave you like that, could I? What the hell even _happened_?”

You scowl. “Could we fucking _not_.”

His hands shake in yours, hesitant, and he makes an uncomfortable shrug. “No, we don’t gotta, but I’m kinda runnin’ on a deadline here, Kar, I only got until this bubble slides away again, so you might as well spill.”

He bites his lip and looks away and it’s _painful_ how much he wants you. You see a shadow of the old Eridan, the one you knew, the six-sweep-old kid who feared rejection almost as much as he feared what might happen if he didn’t keep latching on to anyone who glanced at him.

But he has a point. Who the fuck knows when you’ll have a chance to have an honest to god jam with someone again, and as… weird as him knowing you inside and out feels, it’s something you’ve craved for a long time, more than you can adequately express.

God you are one desperate fuck.

“ _Ugh_ , alright, fine. How do we do this.”

Visibly relieved—his earfins fucking _droop_ with it, fuck your life—his lips twitch into a smile. “We could stay in here if you want, or we could head outside, settle down somewhere less dusty.”

“Fine.”

The two of you do a little awkward scooting dance while you try to get around him and dial the code that will unlock the door. The number pad flickers from red to green and the door swooshes open—

And you step into a hive. For a second or two you’re completely disoriented, and then something about the gray carpet under your feet, the shape of the doors, the walls, all of it is familiar and yet everything is different—

You realize it’s your hive, but Eridan flavored. There is your couch, your books, your bookshelves, but there’s a fucking ship’s wheel where your poster of Troll Will Smith used to be. You scan the room, and your mouth drops open. Pointless wall hangings in abstract shapes hang everywhere. There is a coffee table that looks to be made out of a mahogany door, and on top of it are three hideously shaped teal vases, holding nothing. There is a crystal chandelier. This motherfucker put a crystal chandelier in your fucking entertainment area. A glance in the food prep block reveals everything is chrome and glass and black countertops, with red globe shaped hanging lamps. You bare your teeth.

“This is one fucking ugly hive.”

Eridan snickers. “You shoulda seen yourself the day I tried to add a cholerbear rug next to the couch. You hit the fuckin’ roof.”

You can imagine how it must have happened. Eridan moves his stuff in and starts implementing small shit at first, and then one evening perigees later not-you wakes up and looks around and he’s surrounded by terrariums and ugly lamps and framed antique maps.

“Color me surprised.”

“It was _vintage_!”

You can almost see the double-v. You rake your fingers down your face and glare at him. “ _Uuughh._ Could you just show me where to go so we can get this done with as little bullfuckery as possible?”

“A’course.”

He leads you upstairs, to a room where you used to store old monitors and consoles and grubgames. Inside you discover that not-you and Eridan had turned it into a jamming room. There is more hipster nonsense—some ornate rugs and a glass mosaic lamp in red and purple that Eridan probably dug out of the bowels of some antique shop—but the rest is you: a proper pile made of comfortable throw pillows, next to an end table with incense sticks bristling from a small white vase. You smell sandalwood.

There is a faint rhythmic rumble coming from somewhere, and for a split second you can’t place what it is until you see a white clawed leg sticking out from behind the pile and your bloodpusher seizes up—

“ _Dad?_ ”

You’re reeling. The last time you saw him he was—he was—

Behind you, Eridan sighs heavily. “Goddamn it, I keep telling him not to sleep in here—”

“ _Don’t fucking touch him._ ”

He goes still and blinks at you, wide-eyed. “Oh. Uh. Okay.”

You look behind the pile and discover him wedged between the cushions and the wall. He is curled on his stomach, his plates moving with each low, long snore, and his spikes, oh god, his spikes are meticulously decorated in random shit—ties, a pair of rumpled pants, ethernet cords, videogame controllers, lights on strings, an octopus plush, all of it covered with a large laundry basket. There is an antique lampshade on his head. You cover your mouth and make a sound that’s torn between a laugh and a whimper.

Eridan grumbles and snatches a lavender tie away. Crabdad doesn’t stir.

“H-he. He used to do that when I was a kid, the asshole.” You sound like an imbecile and you don’t care, you are awash in absurd, blurry memories. You crouch and press your palms against warm, living faceplates. “Crawl around the house with my stuff all over him. I could never figure out why.”

“Fuckin’ hell, but I wish he wouldn’t do that. This thing is pure luna silk.” There’s a rustling of pillows as he makes himself comfortable on the pile. “You ready?”

Dreaming still, Crabdad butts his head into your hands. Your squawkblister closes. He’s just a memory— _Eridan’s_ memory, even—but he feels so fucking real…

You lean down and press your forehead against his. “Sorry I was an impulsive shitwipe.” you whisper.

When you stand back up, Eridan is stretched out on his side and smiling at your antics, and all at once you can’t move. It was one thing to have somebody papping you while you pitched a tiny wiggler fit, but this is different, it’s been too long, you don’t remember how this works anymore. You feel heat creeping up your face as your hands fist at your sides, every inch of you tense and uncertain.

Eridan laughs, but there’s no scorn in it. He thinks you’re adorable. You feel the blush reach your ears.

“Oh my _god_ , Kar, come _here_.”

He grabs one of your wrists and helps you onto the pile, where you… perch. You huddle there, your arms wrapped around your knees, and hunch your shoulders.

“So, uh. I don’t know where the fuck to start.”

“It’s been a long time since you done this, hasn’t it.”

He doesn’t wait for you to answer. You whip your head over your shoulder to stare at him incredulously as he reaches up and pulls you down with him, tucking your back against his chest like you’re a stiff-limbed, recalcitrant mewbeast. You squirm fussily, but he doesn’t tighten his arms or hamper you in any way, and through some fluke your head ends up pillowed on his arm and he curls himself just so around you and you feel the awkward tension drain out of you. Okay, yeah, this is good, the two of you in a dim room, the pile moving with your dad’s grumbly snores.

He hooks an arm around your waist tentatively. You twine your fingers with his. Within minutes, you’re breathing together, and you almost don’t want to start because that would mean it would end. He strokes your hair, like before, and your thoughts slow down and turn fuzzy.

You tell him everything. You’re surprised how little time it takes. Eridan listens, and he doesn’t interrupt once. You remember how he used to be, how you couldn’t so much as complain about a stubbed frond in front of him without him turning it into a conversation about himself, how even when he was telling you his own troubles you could rarely get a word in edgewise before he found some reason to insist your advice would never work until he was too spiraled down in his own hopelessness to listen.

You wonder if he learned that from jamming with not-you, or maybe it was as simple a thing as all that time alone in a bubble made him grateful to hear another voice. (You remember with a shudder that you’ve met ghosts and alternates that were hundreds of sweeps—how old is this Eridan, who knows the perfect way to knead between your shoulders while you vomit up all your troubles?)

Maybe it’s you. Ever since Eridan hauled you in here he hasn’t been able to take his oculars off you. You’re not his, you know he knows that, and he doesn’t care. He touches you like you might disappear at any moment, cautiously, and yet as though he can’t help himself, reveling in the familiarity and newness of you.

You pour yourself out like you’ve never done before. Under normal circumstances this is a jam you’re certain would take several evenings to slog through, with breaks to decompress and engage in various aftercare activities lest you both end up too mired down to listen well. It’s for this reason that you were never one for one-night stands—they always sounded like they would be too rushed, it would be impossible to express everything properly.

But there’s something to be said about having a time limit. There is a desperate, all or nothing feel to the whole experience, you and him against a universe that’s crumbling a little more each day.

By the time you’re done, you’re clinging with your face buried in his neck without a hint of shame, his arms locked around you. You don’t cry, but there is a raw, unbearable pain in your chest that makes you wish you could.

“I feel like a waste.” you whisper.

“You an your preposterous self loathing.” he mutters. “I ain’t gonna tell you you’re not a waste, ‘cause I doubt that’s gonna get through, but I will say this: there’s something I’ve learned.” His claws move over your scalp in aimless little patterns and you shudder and cling tighter. “You prolly seen other yous floatin’ out there, yeah?”

You nod.

“I seen tons a other mes, ones who fucked up royally early on, ones who gave up, ones who got way farther ahead than I ever had any chance a bein’. And lots of’em thought what you did, all ‘what the hell is death even meanin’ in a place like this, what did all my actions mean in the end.’ I say, what if our actions don’t mean shit and never did? What about that?”

“So you’re saying there’s no point to anything.”

“Nah, I’m sayin’ that, believe it or not, shit changes whether or not you do a damned thing. The past, all that nostalgic nonsense you got your little claws dug into? That’s _gone_ , sweetheart, but that don’t mean your whole life is fucked. You’re _you_ , you’re here, that’s enough. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with just livin’, you don’t need some quest to keep you goin’. Quit worryin’ so goddamn much.”

You snort. “Some Prince of Hope.”

“The very best. Though I suppose it’s easy for me to say, livin’ in a little timelocked memory bubble.”

“No, no. It makes sense. When’d you get so smart anyway? Stop it, it’s annoying.”

Smirking, he presses his lips against your forehead. “Actually, wiseass, I learned that one from you.”

* * * *

The two of you stay in the pile for as long as you dare. You feel guilty for not being able to do something in return for him until you realize he’s holding on to you like you’re the only thing keeping him afloat. He knows time is running out, his bloodpump is cracking with that knowledge, but he’s memorizing you in the meantime, and you let him.

He doesn’t expect you to touch back, and the broken sob he makes into your hair when you stroke an earfin almost gets you going too. You press a palm flat over his sternum.

“ _Shoooosh._ ”

Eridan shudders violently and looks at you with wide, disbelieving eyes that say clearer than words what’s tearing him up inside. _I can’t lose you again, what will I_ do _when you’re gone?_ You pull him closer and rub his back in slow, firm movements. He holds you tight enough to hurt, and you only wish he could hold you tighter, your words coming out in a long, despairing rush:

“Shhhh. You’re gonna be fine, you’ll see. You’ll get through this, man, it’s all gonna be okay—”

He draws in a long, trembling breath, and another, and another, each one steadier than the last.

“That’s it, bro. You’re okay. _Shhhh._ ”

You feel him hesitate before he nuzzles you, like some nipped up mewbeast, and you nuzzle in return.

“Kar.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s time to go.”

You reluctantly untangle. The time it takes to leave the jamming room and head downstairs passes in a blur—soon you’re both standing arms length apart at the front door, his hands clasped tight in yours. He’s holding up bravely for you, but it’s all brittle determination, the slightest thing might utterly shatter his calm.

Eridan fidgets, taking a small step toward you, looking at your lips, looking away. You move closer and cup his elbows.

He freezes, unsure, all hesitant longing. You end up talking at the same time.

“Can I—?”

“—Yeah.”

He’s pressing his mouth to yours before you even finish speaking, cold hands gripping the sides of your head roughly. It’s been so long since you were last kissed, you forgot what it felt like—he kisses you hard and defiant, all teeth, his tongue thrusting wildly, belying the thin, wrecked moan he makes when you kiss back.

And even as he kisses you, you know as certain as the feel of your pounding bloodpusher that he’s kissing someone else at the same time, a goodbye he never got to say.

Eridan parts all too soon, and you think you will never quite forget his desolate face. “Thanks for everythin’.”

He shoves you through the door, and you’re staring at the back of your secret room before you can comprehend what he just did. You’re left reeling in the sudden darkness, breathing hard, tasting stale, dusty air.

You will never see each other again.

Even so, the impulse to check is irresistible. You turn and open your door—and there is your old block, just as you left it. You squint under fluorescent lights and run your tongue over bitten lips.

You stare out at the room for a long time without seeing it before you notice that it’s a fucking pig stye, dirty clothes and empty noodle pods everywhere. Is _that_ what you’ve been eating for god knows how long, trudging around the meteor the same jeans and sweatshirt you’ve been wearing for weeks?

It occurs to you that you’re hungry for the first time in what feels like sweeps.

You want a shower and a change of clothes. You want steak. And then you want chocolate. You want _all_ of the chocolate.

**Epilogue:**

—carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG]—  
CG: GET IN HERE AND HELP ME EAT THIS CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN YOU GIANT SACK OF SHIT.


End file.
